Melodifestivalen – Sweden’s own Eurovision!

Swedes love music and Eurovision! How can one know that? It’s enough to take a look at Melodifestivalen, the music competition which decides the Swedish entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.

Melodifestivalen or The Melody Festivaltakes place every year between February and March. It is composed of four semi-final shows, one second change show and the final. Each of these shows can be called a “mini-Eurovision“, with two hours of live broadcasting, seven songs, venues with filled excited fans and millions of votes!

In the last five years, two of the Melodifestivalen winners went and won the Eurovision Song Contest too in the same year, while other two were placed on the third place at the Eurovision.

The winner of Melodifestivalen 2015 was Måns Zelmerlöw with “Heroes“. Later the same year he won the Eurovision 2015 for Sweden and this makes Stockholm the host of Eurovision Song Contest this year. What an exciting spring is coming!

Getting back to Melodifestivalen, the dates and locations for for this year are the following. Semi-finals: Gothenburg (6 February), Malmö (13 February), Norrköping (20 February) and Gävle (27 February). Second chance: Halmstad (5 March). The final takes place on 12 March in Stockholm.

In general, more than three million people watch Melodifestivalen on the national television, SVT. That’s about one third of the whole population of Sweden! Why don’t you join them starting next week and follow the competition on: SVT. After all, music is a global “language”, isn’t it?